(My son recently had an assignment to spend the day “shadowing” someone at work to learn about their job. His teacher was fine with him shadowing me as a writer, which just goes to show you that the rising generation already knows how to work the system. So he wouldn’t spend the day goofing off, I had him write a review and “submit” it to me for editing and revision. This is what he wrote.)

Beyonders: A World Without Heroes
By Brandon Mull
Aladdin, 2011

A guest post by Rhys

A World Without Heroes is a book about two people from our world falling through to another world in some unlikely circumstances. The first main character that we meet is Jason. Jason is smart, but not a nerd or a geek, and he enjoys playing baseball. He has a fairly snarky personality but tends to like people. When he gets to this new world, at first he thinks that something weird is going on but other than that thinks he’s still on Earth. Rachel is smart, close to the point of being a nerd, and is home schooled. She is even more snarky than Jason, but still has a soft spot for people that are in need. She is very close in personality to Jason, and that helps them get along… most of the time.

This world is ruled by the last wizard, Maldor. Maldor is a bad person who enjoys torturing people and in the end almost killing them. Most of the time he lets them go with something that makes it so that they will never be a threat to him again. One person from the new world who helps Jason and Rachel is Ferrin, who is a displacer. Displacers have some weird talents; for instance, they can pull bits of them off and if it’s an eye, they can sew it on something else and still use that eye. The other person who helps them is Jasher. Jasher is an Amar Kabal, or “seed person.” The Amal Kabar are people grown from seeds that are pretty much invincible. Well, they still die, but their seed lives and grows another version of them. They only are babies once. Jasher is an outcast who is seeking out Maldor so he can kill him. The reason being, Maldor permanently killed someone he was related to.

One of the things that I enjoyed about this book is how it never leaves you hanging and it’s filled with suspense. Some of my personal favorite characters are the bad guys. Part of what made this book so good was the fact that there were bad guys who had almost, but not quite, turned into good guys just by hanging out with Jason and Rachel.

I didn’t enjoy that no matter what, the enemy pretty much knew what the heroes were doing at any time. And sometimes, the enemy felt like it was just a bit too overpowered. Even in a world where the bad guy was the last wizard, the antagonists shouldn’t have that much power at their disposal. This whole book is basically a starter for a much bigger series and that gives the impression that no matter what, the good guys are almost destined to fail at their goal till the next book.

Despite all this, I think that overall it is a good book for people who enjoy action, fantasy, and adventure. In the end I loved this book a lot and could hardly keep myself from reading it all day at school. I finished it in about 3-4 days, so I can personally say it is an amazing book that can be enjoyed by people about nine and up.

Goddess of Yesterday by Caroline B. Cooney
Delacorte, 2002
Category: Fantasy

Goddess of Yesterday is a mythological fantasy, one of my favorite kinds of books. I love retellings of Greek or Norse myths, or books based on aspects of ancient mythologies. In this case, it’s the Trojan War. 6-year-old Anaxandra is taken from her small island home as a hostage against her father’s good behavior by Nicander, a slightly more powerful ruler of a slightly larger island. Years later, Nicander’s island is sacked and Anaxandra is the sole survivor. When much more powerful king Menelaus arrives to investigate the destruction, Anaxandra passes herself off as Nicander’s daughter Callisto; she guesses correctly that Menelaus will treat a princess whose dowry includes an island better than he would a hostage girl from a rock in the sea. Unfortunately, Menelaus’s wife isn’t nearly so convinced—and since she is Helen, daughter of Zeus and the most beautiful woman in the world, her antagonism could mean Anaxandra’s death. But then Paris of Troy pays Menelaus a visit, the results of which are legendary. A strange combination of events puts Anaxandra on a ship for Troy, once again pretending to be someone she’s not, and she has to do everything in her power to stay away from Helen and to survive the beginning of the Trojan War.

I love Cooney’s writing in general, and Goddess of Yesterday is in my opinion one of her better works. Because it is written for a young adult audience, the threats to Anaxandra’s life and liberty are chilling without being overwritten for shock effect. Cooney takes the position that Helen of Troy was a cunning, selfish opportunist whose semi-divine beauty had a physical effect on everyone around her, a woman who connived with Paris to flee to Troy rather than being kidnapped against her will. Her Helen is downright scary. If you think that beauty isn’t a weapon, this book will convince you otherwise. Other characters are equally well realized, and their characterizations make sense within the context of Homer’s story: the affable but distant Menelaus, King Priam secure and arrogant in his impregnable fortress, Hector as sensible warrior and loving husband. Cooney lays out the background of her story in an excellent afterword that should give plenty of context to readers unfamiliar with the events leading to the Trojan War. Even so, this book will probably mean more to readers who know the old stories and want to see a fresh take on them from a different perspective.

That different perspective is that of the fictional Anaxandra (let’s not quibble about how non-fictional Homer’s characters were, okay?), a tough and intelligent girl whose character is far better suited to being a princess than the sweet but fragile Callisto she befriends and whose identity she usurps. The title of the book comes from Anaxandra’s childhood faith, in which her family prayed to a goddess whose name was never known or mentioned, but whose icon is Medusa—not as an evil serpent-headed witch, but as a figure of strength. There’s a wonderful scene early in the book where Anaxandra is trapped by the raiders who have destroyed Nicander’s kingdom. Forced to choose between treading water until she drowns from exhaustion or turning herself over to the raiders, Anaxandra takes hold of an octopus, puts it on her head, and fools the raiders into believing she is Medusa come to avenge the dead. It’s the kind of impulsive, intelligent, gutsy move that makes Anaxandra such a compelling character. She’s got enough personality for Cooney to set her in opposition to Helen herself, to challenge the demigoddess and win. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place  by E.L. Konigsburg
Atheneum, 2004
Category: Young Adult

The Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place is a story told by the adult Margaret Rose Kane about what happened the summer she was twelve: the beautiful towers built by her favorite uncles in their backyard over a span of forty-five years are scheduled to be torn down in the name of urban renewal–sorry, I mean "redevelopment." But this is just the frame for the larger story of how, that summer, Margaret Rose stopped being a child. It’s about laws, and rules, and falling in love, and how winning doesn’t always mean getting what you want.

The thing I love most about this book is the way events are intertwined. There’ll be a passage about a particular event, and then Konigsburg will take a phrase from that passage and use it to embroider on events, or explain them from someone else’s point of view, always drawing the story back to the main thread. It allows us to hear things from someone else’s POV without destroying the central concept of this being a story Margaret is telling us about her past. As big a fan as I am of the strictly limited first-person narrative, I think the book would have been less emotionally satisfying if we’d had only Margaret’s take on things.

Without giving the plot away, I can say that the good guys win, and yet so do the "bad guys," and I think it feels melancholy because as an adult I knew immediately that Margaret was in a situation where her sense of right and wrong was going to be challenged and defeated. Does she grow up happy? Yeah. Did she lose something precious? Definitely. That’s life for you–we can be happy and miserable at the same time, or be miserable because we’re happy. Or, possibly, it’s just me.

Because at the heart of this novel is something that infuriates me: people who hide behind laws, or rules, or sayso, rather than being honest about what they’re trying to do.  The reason the uncles’ towers are being torn down is because the new neighbors are professionals who want to flip their houses for a profit and think the giant constructions are an eyesore. But they won’t say that. They talk about "community good" and "character of a neighborhood" like their opinions are actually concrete, objective fact. The same theme is repeated in a more personal way with Mrs. Kaplan, director of the summer camp Margaret chooses to attend. Mrs. Kaplan sees herself as the queen of her surroundings, but admitting that would be crass, so she dresses up her opinions and desires in unbreakable rules that substitute for reason. This total abdication of honesty makes me want to throw things. It lets weak-minded people achieve power at the expense of rationality. Jerks.

Like I said, everyone wins in the end. Even the people who fought hardest against the continued existence of the towers ultimately forget how much they hated them. Margaret Rose Kane grows up knowing that she made a difference. She also gets her heart broken and learns that being right doesn’t guarantee you’ll win. Both of those are part of living, but we don’t have to be happy about them.

Flipped  by Wendelin Van Draanen
Knopf, 2001
Category: Young Adult

I’m familiar with Wendelin Van Draanen from her delightful Sammy Keyes mysteries.  Despite being juvenile literature (side note: "Juvenile" in literature is not derogatory; it means books marketed to the 8-12 year age group.  The first Harry Potter books are considered juveniles, and you know how many teens and adults are addicted to those)–anyway, despite the juvenile tag, the Sammy Keyes books are well-suited to readers of any age.  I especially like the characterization and the way in which adults figure into the main character’s life; sometimes the near-mandatory erasure or stupidification of adults in juvenile or YA fiction gets tedious.  (Stupidification is my new word for the day.)

On the other hand, I’ve never read any of Van Draanen’s YA work (YA=books marketed to 12-17 year age group.  I know you were wondering) and you’d be surprised how often this happens to me even with authors I like.  I loved the Kitty Norville books, but did I go out of my way to pick up Carrie Vaughn’s young adult fantasy?  No.  Big fan of the Alcatraz Smedry books, but The Way of Kings languishes unread on someone else’s nightstand…no, wait, that’s because it’s over a thousand pages long.  Never mind.  The point is, often when I enjoy an author’s books in a particular vein, I’m reluctant to see what they do with a different genre or age group.  It’s not all that uncommon for an author to be good at one particular type of story and one only.  What if they suck at the new story type?  I don’t *want* a favorite author to suck.

I shouldn’t have worried.  Flipped is a brilliant, easy to read book that has more substance to it than it seems.  Told in alternating voices, Bryce and Juli grow from children to almost-teens together.  Juli loves Bryce because he is so gorgeous, even as a child, with dark hair and amazing blue eyes; Bryce dislikes Juli because she’s weird, with her loud habits and obvious attraction to him.  Over the course of the novel, Juli learns to see Bryce for who he is–cowardly, shallow, unthinking–and Bryce discovers that Juli’s odd behaviors and strong convictions make her a truly amazing person he would be lucky to call his friend, or more.

The alternating voices are Van Draanen’s first brilliant move.  Bryce tells his story first, and then Juli tells the same event from her perspective, which always has the effect of revealing facts Bryce doesn’t know and how his behavior really appears.  This allows us to see Bryce’s selfish characteristics without completely losing sympathy for him–necessary, since this story is ultimately a romance.  As with the Sammy Keyes books, Van Draanen makes adults a necessary supporting part of the book, particularly Bryce’s grandfather Chet, who sees in Juli the same spark his wife had, and Juli’s father, a landscape painter who goes from being perceived as a layabout to being someone who has sacrificed probably too much for his family.

As easy and entertaining as this is to read, it’s got a level of truth to it that a less skilled author would have tried to hammer home.  By focusing on the story, Van Draanen lets the truth speak through her characters’ actions, which gives Flipped a staying power rarely found in such a non-ponderous book.  Find it, read it, give it to your children, and let them see it for themselves.

Dogland by Will Shetterly
Tor, 1997
Category:  Young Adult

I’m sometimes more critical of good books with big flaws than I am of really bad ones.  With a good book, there’s always the sense that the flaws could have been avoided; that they’re more obvious when put in such close contrast with the good elements of the book.  Dogland was one I knew would be worth reading and that I was prepared to really like, but from the very beginning there were too many problems to let me be truly happy with the book.

Dogland does have a lot of stellar qualities.  Will Shetterly understands human nature and is good at showing it.  He’s also good at dialect, something too many writers could stand to improve on.  His descriptions are perfect, whether he’s talking about places, people, or events.  I thought he captured Florida in the early ’60s very well.  I also liked the narrator’s family, whose personalities and interactions felt very believable.

Shetterly also did a good job of introducing fantasy elements and characters into the story–a sort of gods in the modern world thing.  I don’t have any complaints with those characters’ modern personae.  But it drew attention to the first big problem with this novel, which is that there’s way too much meaning, too much symbolism, too much story for the book.  There are plenty of hints at stories that never go anywhere, and most of those hints will go far, far over the head of the average young adult reader.  So I really have to wonder what the point was?  Was it a failed attempt at saying something about the nature of stories?  Was he just showing off?  If three major gods of the Norse pantheon drop by, I want to know why they’re in the story at all.  Or Lucifer, who as Nick Lumiere doesn’t seem to do anything but slither around…never mind, that’s pretty accurate.  It’s suggested that the garden of Eden is in Florida, and that’s why the Fountain of Youth is there as well, but Shetterly doesn’t actually do anything with it.  These characters simply float around, living their own lives, and given how many hints Shetterly drops about their real identities, I call this a red herring.  At the very least, it’s an inexplicable waste of robust mythological meaning.

One thing I really wish he’d done more with is Chris’s sister, Little Bit, who has the Sight.  It’s never stated outright, and recognizing that she has it requires some experience with fantasy tropes, but her use of it is very well done.  She’s a child, and she says what she sees, and everyone thinks she’s being imaginative or just wrong.  Shetterly handled this very well, except for, again, not doing anything with it.

The main plot, as far as I can tell, is the effect the Civil Rights Movement has on the residents of this backwater Florida county.  The narrator, Chris Nix, was born in the South, but his parents are Yankees and have the sort of liberal (in the classical sense) attitudes about slavery you would expect.  They hire black workers and pay them the same as the white workers, they won’t let their kids treat blacks badly, etc.  Over the course of the novel, tensions arise between the Nixes, the redneck racists, and the people who are somewhere in between.  This main plot is so well handled that it’s yet another strike against including all those fantasy elements.  There’s just no point to overburdening the story that much.  The climactic scene actually combines the fantasy "plot" and the main plot, but because the story is so unwieldy, the climax lacks the kind of power it needs to have.  I got to the end of the book with no idea what I was supposed to have thought of it, and since I usually don’t care about "supposed to," that’s saying a lot.

The rest of the gripes I have are smaller but extremely distracting.  First of all, I can tell that Shetterly has no children of his own.  The premise is that Chris is retelling these childhood events as an adult, but doing so by recounting what he knew and felt at the time (unless he explicitly says "I think this is what happened" or "I didn’t see this, but it probably went this way").  But it’s stated that Chris is four years old when he retells his earliest memories, and I guarantee you no four-year-old thinks that linearly or has that good a memory.  What’s more, he supposedly remembers his youngest brother’s birth–and since his baby brother is two when Chris is four, that means Chris can remember *clearly* his two-year-old observations, and his sister, who is three when the story starts, is SPEAKING IN COMPLETE SENTENCES at one year of age.  Hah.  Not to mention that their poor mother has been pumping the sprogs out once a year for three years straight.  Double hah.  Chris’s age was dictated more by Shetterly’s need for him not to be in school at the beginning of the novel, but otherwise, if you assign the kids the more reasonable ages of 8, 6, and 2, you get behaviors that are consonant with their development.  I would have been happier if I’d been able to ignore it, but the ages keep getting mentioned.

And Dogland.  It’s a sort of theme park/living museum/petting zoo in which dogs of every conceivable breed are displayed, so people can be educated and entertained.  Except–is it really likely that owners of pedigree dogs are going to loan out or rent out their dogs to a stranger, send them clear across the country and away from their homes?  Really?  This was easier to overlook, but still…really?

Ultimately, the greatest weakness of the novel is that Shetterly tried to do too much with it.  Depending on how you look at it, it’s a kind of To Kill a Mockingbird without Harper Lee’s exquisite grasp of story, or it’s an American Gods without…well, whatever it is Neil Gaiman does in anything he writes, or it’s your standard ’60s-era anti-racism novel–but when it’s all three at once, it’s a mess.  Shetterly’s personal philosophy as expressed by Chris’s father Luke leaves me cold, but the writing is excellent and it was a very interesting book.  For once I think that being *less* aware of the subtext will be a plus for any reader giving this book a try.  Let your teens read it, and don’t explain who Johnny Tepes is.